By FITSNews || Under pressure from powerful lawmakers – including House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham – the University of South Carolina is reportedly tapping veteran GOP consultant Richard Quinn to promote its failed “Innovista” (a.k.a. “Inept-O-Vista”) research campus.
Except USC won’t be paying Quinn directly, sources tell FITS, he’ll be employed by other groups with a “stake” in the project.
“Absolutely false,” is how USC spokeswoman Margaret Lamb described the rumors that USC had hired Quinn directly.
The news comes two weeks after this mother of all botched “economic development” projects received a $154 million taxpayer-funded bailout from the City of Columbia, S.C. – which of course is on top of the $150 million tax dollars it has already wasted.
(For the latest on this ongoing taxpayer disaster, click here).
Assuming the news about Quinn is true, though, we couldn’t be happier.
After all, we’ve been kicking S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell and USC President Harris Pastides squarely in the balls on this boondoggle (repeatedly, in fact), and while that’s been fun it hasn’t exactly been challenging.
Quinn, at least, would keep us on our toes …
By No Name March 4, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Bobby and Harris ….stop digging in this hole and stop listening to idiots like Larry telling you this is salvageable ……..although Lindsey may come up with some short term Rahm magic bullet to steady this drain….the basic premise….that this type of economic development and incubation still works…… is wrong.
Minimize the Innovista costs to the extent you can and look for some other type of university owned core technology that you can less expensively try and build a core of development around.
This will take 5 years minimum….but it could work…the other stuff will only evaporate right after the House change in 2010 and the two years of grid lock and depression that will surely follow.
Harris you are better than this…quit being rolled….initiatives like this fail all the time….don’t not make it any worse.
By stimulus March 4, 2010 at 12:22 pm
i hear the first big client will be Eric Hyman and the Gamecock Club.